"We all know it was dead quiet in the studio yet for some reason we are used to a little noise?"
I think you've touched the white elephant in the room with most audio systems. IMO the perceived liveliness and so-called treble air of a lesser system is riding up on top of an underlying noise level that casual listeners find impressive. Along these lines, after recently treating various components with AVM anti-resonance paint, my first impression was the contradictory sense of qualities both gained and lost. But after further listening, it became clear that despite a slight perception of treble darkness, treble detail and extension had actually been improved.
It was particularly impressive to apply this paint to monolithic DSPs and op amp chips, the tops of electrolytic caps, resistor bodies, and tiny closely spaced circuit traces in CDP and Merlin line-stage BBAM. I'm beginning to think of the entire audio chain from silicon on up (not just capacitors) in terms of internally generated microphonic resonant affects.
